


New Year

by EmmaArthur (EchoBleu)



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, New Year's Eve, Post Season 1, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:29:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22075510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoBleu/pseuds/EmmaArthur
Summary: New Year's Eve at the Wild Pony is hard on Alex.
Relationships: Alex Manes & Rosa Ortecho, Maria DeLuca & Alex Manes
Comments: 12
Kudos: 56





	New Year

**Author's Note:**

> This is a little snippet of a fic that wanted to be written today. I had the first sentence, then it went wildly different from what I expected, but I like it like it is.
> 
> [PTSD flashback/panic attack, implied alcoholism]

Coming to the Wild Pony's New Year's Eve party was a terrible idea, Alex decides as he squirms in his seat, nervously checking his watch.  H e's starting to wonder if the hand is frozen at t wenty minutes to midnight . He doesn't even know why he caved in to his friend s' relentless nagging. So they would leave him alone, probably.  That plan failed spectacularly, since he's now stuck in a corner of the packed bar, watching Maria, Liz and Rosa dance and trying not to flinch every time someone comes within three feet of him.

He knows that Maria hoped tonight would be an opportunity to start repairing their damaged friendship. They've barely seen each other since she ended things with Michael, only days after they first hooked up, when the revelation that not only Michael was an alien but also that he helped cover up her best friend's murder proved to be too much for her.

Alex _wants_ to forgive her. He wants to go back to their easy camaraderie, to support each other over drinks and talk about boy problems and Maria's mom's health and what Alex will do after his discharge. He doesn't want the pang in his chest every time he thinks of her and Michael, the tears he can only stop by snapping at her with a biting comment. They did nothing wrong, he tells himself. He and Michael were not together. Alex didn't tell Maria the full story. She didn't know.

“Alex,” a voice shakes him out of his thoughts, and he looks up. Maria just slid into the seat across from him, her cheeks red from dancing and drinking. Alex's hand tightens around his glass.

“Tired of dancing?” he asks with his best fake smile.

Maria clearly sees through his facade, but she plays along. “I want to dance with you,” she says.

“I don't dance anymore,” Alex says.

Not that he's danced a lot in his life. He went to prom without a date, since the whole school knew he was gay anyway. No boy offered to parade around with him. Then the military didn't offer many opportunities for dancing.

Maria's eyes flicker down to his legs. His left leg is moving quietly in rhythm with the music, but his right stays still, missing a working ankle to bounce. 

“Come on. I'll go easy on you.”

Alex looks away, not letting their eyes meet. He hates himself for not being able to do something as simple as faking it. Why is it so hard tonight? He's a master at pretending he's fine. He smiled his way through his hospital stay and his rehab. He smiled his way through his abused childhood.  He can do this.

“Okay,” he decides suddenly. He stands up so brutally that his chair screeches on the floor, but it's drowned out by the music. It's loud, too loud in here. Alex can't hear people approaching him. Sounds fade into each other and make his head pound. His leg aches.

Maria's small hand slips into his. Alex is briefly grateful for her not going over the top, or being too tentative. She's trying, and so is he. It's awkward and painful but they're doing their best.

She's apologized, several times, for not understanding, for breaking her promise. Alex doesn't know why it doesn't feel like enough. 

Liz lightly bumps into him, as Alex starts moving his hips in rhythm with the music. His leg doesn't love it, but it's not too bad. It's a song he likes, even though the noise is hard to bear. Maria smiles, and Rosa high fives her.

They're happy together. Now Max has been resurrected, and Rosa has a new identity, the dust has settled and they have a moment of peace. Alex swallows.

They've all cheerfully abandoned the Caulfield files to him, leaving him to spend his nights watching footage of aliens being tortured−Alex can handle it, can't he? He's a soldier. He's seen worse. Hell, he's done worse.

He hasn't slept two hours in a row in months. When it's not nightmares, it's the pain. He keeps things close to heart, though. It's his own fault, he knows, for not telling anyone.

In a moment of clarity, Alex identifies the feeling that's been nagging him since that night he found Maria and Michael kissing. It's loneliness. Maria's betrayal hurt so much because she was the first person he ever told about Michael, and she treated his confession of love like a joke.  Michael keeps throwing his father in his face like he's the only one who's ever been hurt by him.  Kyle knows bribes, about the abuse, about Michael, but he doesn't ever ask more. No one knows about the homophobic jokes Alex smiles through at work, where he has to pretend to be someone he isn't. They don't know about the scars on his body that aren't from the war, and the ones that are. They don't know about the pain or the flashbacks or the fear that grips him sometimes. They don't know about the men who died under his command and the people who died by his hand, and how much they haunt him, every single day.

No one asks.

Feeling like he might choke, Alex steps away and escapes through the front door. Less than ten minutes to midnight, his watch tells him. He glimpses a cowboy hat, but it's not Michael. The alien siblings are here somewhere tonight, he knows, but he hasn't seen them.

H e toys with the idea getting into his car and just driving home, but he resists the impulse and goes the opposite direction instead. Maria's red truck is parked at the end of the lot, closest to the bar's back door, so he lays down the back and sits on the edge, crossing his arms over his chest. He's cold.

In a minute, everyone else will be heading out to see the fireworks, starting at midnight. Alex has been dreading this moment most. He braces himself, trying to take deeper breaths. The music still resounds loudly, even with the doors of the bar closed against the cold. 

“What's wrong?”

Alex looks up in time to see Rosa approach. He's missed her leaving the bar. She sits down beside him, one leg tucked under her.

“Nothing,” Alex says. They haven't talked a lot since she was resurrected. Alex still isn't used to that thought, that he now has ten years on her. They used to be good friends.

“Don't give me that. I may be dead, but I'm not ignorant. I can see you're struggling.”

Alex sighs, but he doesn't answer.

“I am too, you know. It's hard to watch so many people drinking. Liz and Maria have good intentions, but they don't _think_ sometimes.”

Neither does Alex, apparently, because he's hadn't even noticed. “It's gotta be hard,” he says.

“You know what? I'm really glad you didn't just ask me if I was thinking of having a drink. I'm not, by the way. It doesn't mean it's not hard.”

“I know,” Alex murmurs. “It's hard to be around so many people. And so much noise.”

Rosa nods. “Yeah. Let's stick together, okay?”

“Um,” Alex agrees. On an impulse, he adds, “It's five to. Fireworks soon. Can you−”

Rosa shifts and grabs his hand. “I'll be here,” she says.

“Thank you,” Alex gives her a small smile. “I've missed you.”

“Oh, mijo,” Rosa murmurs. “It wasn't long ago for me, but I thought...when I first saw you in uniform, I thought you'd changed too much. I thought you weren't _you_ anymore. You've all...everything's so different.”

For a moment, Alex sees his own loneliness reflected in Rosa's eyes. “I'm still me,” he murmurs. “Just more...jagged. Burnt.”

“Old,” Rosa laughs quietly.

“Yeah, old. And you're a baby.”

They keep holding hands as the countdown starts, and the parking lot fills with people shouting along. At zero, Rosa leans in to press a kiss to Alex's forehead, then she wraps her arms around him as he flinches hard at the first  cracks of the fireworks. He loses himself for a moment, gunshots and cries echoing in his head, but he never stops feeling her embrace.

It gets easier, progressively. He opens his eyes again, and he only sees the parking lot, and Liz and Maria looking for them among the crowd.

“You with me?” Rosa asks.

Alex nods and swallows. “Thank you.”

“Anytime, mijo. Anytime.”

Alex lays his head on Rosa's shoulder. “Happy New Year,” he murmurs.

“2020,” Rosa whispers. “What a concept.”

Alex laughs.

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't resist the Russian Doll reference! :D I hope you liked it, I would love to hear your thoughts.


End file.
